preview

Two American Families Essay example

Decent Essays
Open Document

“Two American Families”
The PBS Frontline documentary “Two American Families”, produced by Bill Moyers, follows two middle class families in Milwaukie, one black and one white, for over a decade as they struggle to achieve the “American Dream”. This documentary mirrors the struggle of so many American families who work hard and play by the rules, yet fall victim in a struggling economy to a series of policy decisions made. The hand of policy ineffectively steered the lives of the two families featured, the Neumann’s and Stanley’s, despite their hard work ethic and sincere determination to succeed. Many policy implications played a role in the documentary, including those around education, institutional racism, taxation, overseas jobs …show more content…

If the minimum wage was raised, I believe it would encourage businesses to be more creative on how to effectively utilize their staff and would push them to raise the bar in terms of employee training and business process. Perhaps businesses could be regulated in a way that those who have a higher net worth would be required to offer higher wages while younger or struggling businesses would have a lower wage expectations. That way we know that businesses who can afford it are paying it, but those who can’t aren’t being forces to close doors either. Health Care
The absence of low income health care benefits was also a policy affecting the families in the documentary. The health care system has been a historically broken system. People often rely on their employers for affordable health care coverage and companies often don’t offer it, or as we witnessed in the documentary, they cut hours to part time because they don’t want to (or in some cases can’t afford to) shell out the money for employee health insurance. Most people who are working minimum wage jobs, especially part time minimum wage jobs, certainly cannot afford high individual or family health insurance premiums, and hence are not maintaining their health. People earning minimum wage are often living in poverty and there is a direct link between poverty and the uninsured. Creating new

Get Access
Related
Get Access